Cellphones and cancer

A decade-long study has concluded that radiation from cellphones may cause cancer in rats—but there is still no evidence that it has the same effect on humans. Scientists with the government-funded National Toxicology Program tested 3,000 rats and mice, which were exposed for nine hours a day to radio-frequency radiation similar to that used in 2G and 3G cellphones. They found that 2 to 3 percent of male rats exposed to the radio waves developed a deadly form of brain cancer; none of the control group, which received no radiation, developed the tumors. The researchers also found that 5 to 7 percent of male rats exposed to the highest level of radiation developed heart tumors. There was no link for female rats—a not uncommon disparity in cancer patterns. The team emphasized that the rats were exposed to far more radiation than even heavy phone users would be, and that the new 4G phones deliver much less radio-frequency radiation to the user. “The incidence of brain tumors in human beings has been flat for the last 40 years,” Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, tells USA Today. “That is the absolute most important scientific fact.”